t Forsythe."

"Family matter. Can't it wait?" said Henderson, going on with his
figuring.

"If it can, I cannot," Margaret answered, in a tone that caused him to
turn abruptly and look at her. He was so impatient and occupied that even
yet he did not comprehend the new expression in her face.

"Don't you see I am busy, child? I have an engagement in twenty minutes
in my office."

"You can read it in a moment," said Margaret, still calm.

Henderson took the letter with a gesture of extreme annoyance, ran his
eye through it, flung it from him on the table, and turned squarely round
in his chair.

"Well, what of it?"

"To ruin poor Mrs. Fletcher and a hundred like her!" cried Margaret, with
rising indignation.

"What have I to do with it? Did I make their investments? Do you think I
have time to attend to every poor duck? Why don't people look where they
put their money?"

"It's a shame, a burning shame!" she cried, regarding him steadily.

"Oh, yes; no doubt. I lost a hundred thousand yesterday; did I whine
about it? If I want to buy anything in the market, have I got to look
into every tuppenny interest concerned in it? If Mrs. Fletcher or anybody
else has any complaint against me, the courts are open. I defy the whole
pack!" Henderson thundered out, rising and buttoning his coat--"the
whole pack!"

"And you have nothing else to say, Rodney?" Margaret persisted, not
quailing in the least before his indignation. He had never seen her so
before, and he was now too much in a passion to fully heed her.

"Oh, women, women!" he said, taking up his hat, "you have sympathy enough
for anybody but your husbands." He pushed past her, and was gone without
another word or look.

Margaret turned to follow him. She would have cried "Stop!" but the word
stuck in her throat. She was half beside herself with rage for a moment.
But he had gone. She heard the outer door close. Shame and grief overcame
her. She sat down in the chair he had just occupied. It was infamous the
way Mrs. Fletcher was treated. And her husband--her husband was so
regardless of it. If he was not to blame for it, why didn't he tell
her--why didn't he explain? And he had gone away without looking at her.
He had left her for the first time since they were married without
kissing her! She put her head down on the desk and sobbed; it seemed as
if her heart would break. Perhaps he was angry, and wouldn't come back,
not for ever so long.

How cruel to sa